The Tenshi Boat Solution
by Kaiorven
Summary: In which Tutu and Kraehe make love, not war, Fakir discovers his latent sex-drive, and Mytho is one lucky bastard. A parody of every harem-fic out there, and guaranteed to make you drop a few IQ points in the bargain. Crack.


This is actually terrible. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself.

* * *

Kraehe and Tutu and their rivalry were going to be the death of him. Literally. This was what you'd call a Problem.

Now, what Fakir usually did to solve problems (and usually it worked quite well) was apply indiscriminate brute force at the object. Be it ordering Mytho into obedience, or practicing relentlessly to get into advanced classes, or threatening Rue, force through words usually worked. And if it didn't work... Well, that was why he had a sword. And the ability to ride a charging horse.

Except Kraehe had magic feather blades that could skewer his horse into neat little steaks, rainstorm feathers and fly so he couldn't even land a hit. His archery skills weren't good enough to target a moving object at speed.

Tutu could strangle his horse with those plant-like power vine summonings. Drown it under a wave of pink petals. Smother it with lace and the Power of Friendship, which was really akin to brainwashing. Use her inhuman grace to outmanoeuvre his attacks, with that irritatingly sympathetic look on her face.

Girliness and Deadliness were not mutually exclusive. He had learned that lesson, at a price.

To put it simply, Fakir was screwed. And not in a good way. In a painful, lance-up-his-ass kind of way. A way that promised doom and humiliation.

So.

Kraehe and Tutu were fighting over restoring the Prince's heart. He needed to stop it, lest he get killed before the final battle with the Raven even began.

He couldn't murder the hypotenuse (Kraehe, since Tutu had established herself as a naive, flaky idiot rather than an enemy). He had sworn to get the Prince's heart back no matter what. There was no guarantee that Tutu would win.

So Fakir thought and thought and paced and paced and occasionally swung his sword at innocent trees.

Could he stop them from being interested in Mytho?

He could see Tutu, valiantly charging forward, confessing her love, and vanishing. Nope. Her love, however idealistic, was stone-solid. No amount of words would sway her there.

Kraehe was rabid and possessive and twisted and twelve levels of really screwed up that he didn't even know how to twist away from Mytho.

Things progressed, as they did. Kraehe stole the heart shard of love, and challenged them through to an underground lake. Ahiru exposed herself... Quite explicitly. Also, duck.

Which brought them to where they were now: a face-off against Kraehe on the shores of a rippling lake.

"After all," Kraehe was purring, "A Prince cannot have two princesses."

This was where he stepped in to challenge Kraehe. And most probably died doing so. He would sacrifice his life for Mytho if there was no other choice...

And this was really starting to look like it.

What else would he do? What else could he do? His mind spun in frustrated circles, as Tutu remained frozen in indecision.

Ahiru stepped forward, and if her voice trembled, and if it was soft and barely heard, still her words echoed in the vast expanse of lake. "If I must confess..."

And now he was going to let a virtual innocent sacrifice her life where it was his role and duty? Was he so cowardly that a slip of a girl – no, not a girl, but a duck – do the very thing he could not?

Do something! Anything!

"Actually," he said loudly, his voice drowning out what Ahiru was about to say, "I disagree with your statement."

There was a long silence.

"Oh?" said Kraehe, folding her arms. "Which part do you have an issue with, oh Knight?"

Fakir, amazed his bluff worked, contemplated a few responses, all of which he tossed out the window.

_You being an ultimate bitch, for one._

_You know, if you have to kidnap the love of your life, that's a sign that he's really not that into you._

_Objection! You're a damn crow, and Ahiru's a duck! What is this, an aviary? I'm sure one of the criteria for "Princess" is being human, otherwise I would have stuck Mytho with Anteaterina. Remind me why didn't I do that again?_

_So, how do you get your dress to stay up?_

Needless to say, none of these responses were very appropriate at the moment.

"A Prince cannot have two princesses," blurted out Fakir.

"That is what she just said," said Ahiru, now looking at him in askance in her pink tutu.

"That's what I disagreed with. I mean, if you had said that 'A Prince does not need two Princesses', that would be more debatable, and I might have agreed. But any Prince with enough influence can have two princesses, if he wished."

What the hell was he saying? He mentally prepared for his imminent skewering by female. Even in this kind of old-fashioned town that sort of thing was frowned upon.

"He can?" said Ahiru, sounding confused. "Isn't love meant to be between one girl and one boy?"

Fakir felt exceedingly, utterly awkward. It was so awkward even Kraehe looked taken aback. It hung, painfully heavy, over the lake.

"Well," Fakir prevaricated. "Usually, that's the case. But sometimes, there are... exceptions."

Princess Tutu blinked wide blue eyes at him, and never before had he seen more of Ahiru in her features.

"This is irrelevant," said Kraehe. "I'm not willing to share, no matter what you say."

"Since you're going to win anyway, at least fulfil my last dying wish to explain this matter to Ahiru," said Fakir. Pointedly. "It's not going to take that long."

Kraehe scoffed.

"Sometimes," continued Fakir, painfully aware his life and Ahiru's dangled on the string of Kraehe's patience, "There are boys who fall in love with boys and girls who fall in love with girls."

Tutu squinted at him. "Are you confessing to me your love for Mytho?"

"No!" said Fakir. He heard Kraehe's laughter, and gritted his teeth. "I'm just saying –"

"Are you sure? I mean, that might actually explain why you were so unwilling to let me restore his heart..." Ahiru trailed off at Fakir's increasingly deadly expression. "I mean, I wouldn't blame you, he's very handsome and –"

"Anyway," said Fakir. "It was just an example."

"How did you know that it happens, then?" asked Ahiru, "If you haven't felt it yourself?"

"I just do," said Fakir, while Kraehe had now succumbed to clutching her stomach, tears falling as she just kept laughing. "But back to the point, there were many historical incidences where men married multiple wives, because of wealth or power or because they could."

Ahiru's eyes grew wide. "You mean like that time Mr. Cat threatened to marry me, Pique, and Lilie? All at once?"

"Sort of," said Fakir uncomfortably. "It's not something I recommend, but it still supports my point that a Prince could have had two Princesses if he wanted."

Kraehe was too busy wiping her face dry to interrupt.

"There's also, uh, threesomes, if you want to be thorough," said Fakir, because even painfully awkward conversations with Ahiru was better than being slain. Not by a whole lot, but enough to prompt him to continue.

"Why three?" asked Ahiru.

"I mean, technically there's no limit to how many people can be in a relationship..." His face felt like it was burning up. "But the logistics of more people become tangled."

Ahiru scrunched her face, her face framed by swan feathers looking exceedingly un-Tutu-like. "Am I in a threesome, then?"

...

"How am I meant to know?" asked Fakir, choking.

"Well, since Kraehe and I – well –" she fumbled, probably to avoid a confession and vanishment. "We're both... interested... in him..."

"That's a love triangle." Fakir said. This was why he preferred force as his solution. No muss, no fuss. And none of this ridiculousness. "It's only a threesome if you love Kraehe."

"A love triangle which I am about to win," said Kraehe. "It was amusing, but now I bore of your conversation. Now confess your love and vanish." Actually, he took that back. Why couldn't he have continued? How much more could he have delayed?

Ahiru looked up at Kraehe. She lifted one arm, and curved it to her chest, followed by the other. It was a mime for love, soft and warm and gentle. "I love you, Rue. I want my friend back. I –"

"Stop it," hissed Kraehe, face reddening with rage. "No matter what you try to do, I will win."

"This isn't about winning, Kraehe," said Princess Tutu in what Fakir clearly recognised as her therapy voice. "I want to restore his heart. You want him. We don't need to fight."

Kraehe cast Fakir an enraged look, as if to say, 'Look at what you've done!' Fakir himself merely gripped his sword. And waited.

He needed to savour every second he was alive here, down in this miserable lake, with a cold-war cat-fight of the century waiting to stir.

"What part of stealing him away from me have you forgotten?" asked Kraehe. "Restoring his heart will mean he'll choose you. And the Prince is the only one who'll ever love me."

"Well, if all you ever do is cling to him, he won't love you either," was Fakir's response –

Which was simultaneously uttered with Princess Tutu's, "That's not true!"

Kraehe oh-so-graciously ignored Fakir completely. "Do you see who I am, Tutu? A crow, born into an ugly human body, – which he alone can love as the noble Prince who loves everyone and everything."

There was a silence after her dramatic statement, and Fakir could hear almost-pride intermingled with shame.

"...you're not ugly," said Ahiru. "You're not ugly at all. Every girl in the Academy wants to be you, you know. Anteaterina wanted Mytho not because she liked him, but because she wanted to be more like you. I wanted to be able to dance like you, to look as nice as you do when dancing. You're pretty, prettier than I'll ever be."

And then the transformation lapsed, and Ahiru stood alone on the lake, in her school uniform, her hair back in a braid.

"I wouldn't mind being in a threesome," she said.

It was Kraehe's turn to choke, but she recovered with considerably more composure than Fakir did. "I don't care to share, Tutu."

"You would have to, anyway," said Fakir. Would he really escape out of this unscathed? "The Prince is destined to love everyone and be loved by everyone. Who knows what that really indicates – better to ally with someone to drive everyone else away."

Kraehe looked a little less disgusted, and a little more considering.

Fakir continued. "I mean, if I had to share –"

"You know, for someone who denies it so often, you really –"

"NOT THAT I WOULD NEED OR WANT TO IN THE FIRST PLACE –"

"I dyed the Prince's heart-shard of love in the Raven's Blood, though," said Kraehe, at last. "So this conversation is moot."

Fakir groaned. "Are you an idiot? You've read the Prince and the Raven! Remember the crow scene where everyone turned into birds?"

Before Kraehe could break down, Ahiru had drawn the older and taller ballerina Princess into a hug. A therapy hug.

Fakir had to look away from the saccharinity (and the fact that Kraehe's head was nestled against Tutu's chest and Ahiru was meant to be as flat as a board!)

It didn't stop Fakir from wiping away a trail of blood from his nose when they kissed, though.

* * *

He was best man for their three-way wedding. Luckily, Kraehe - Rue had been able to confess her love to break the curse of the Raven's Blood and defeat the Raven, and that had been that. Tutu kept her pendant, and if Fakir weren't as bluntly uninterested in romantic matters, he might have declared Mytho a lucky bastard for being in the centre of a three way.

Though, really, he was alive, so everything worked out happily ever after as far as he was concerned.

He and Ahiru had shaken hands briefly, except she'd grasped his with hers and said in a really earnest voice that she was so happy and so grateful, and that had made Fakir more embarrassed than anything.

Mytho had repeated her words. "I can never thank you enough," his best friend and Prince had said, before frowning. "I'm not sure what the historical precedence of this in my kingdom would be, though."

Fakir hastily broke that chain of thought. "They'll both be excellent queens, and I'm sure your public will love them." Well, Rue would be a tyrant, and Ahiru would be too much of a pushover, but if you averaged them out, they'd be fine. Maybe.

Mr. Cat had led Rue down the aisle, and Ahiru's giggling friends had led her as he'd hugged Mytho, leaving in a swan-drawn carriage.

What had stung, though, was Rue's barb disguised-as-advice, delivered in the sweetest of her tones. "Pick one of the girls, and get yourself a girlfriend."

When the had flown off into the story or wherever that was, Fakir was aware of a sudden emptiness.

No Mytho to guard, no Rue to butt heads with, and no Ahiru to even watch over.

...maybe Rue's advice wasn't as unwarranted after all.

"Hm."

* * *

"Out of all the things he had to choose to be, a playboy?" Drosselmeyer cursed his descendant. Not the trail of broken hearts Fakir had left behind (which he could well empathise with, being as popular in his youth).

But rather, the flood of progeny that Fakir had produced (and the paternity suits he had to prove it) in the town meant that there was almost an infinite amount of active story-spinners at any one moment causing havoc. He would approve, but they were weakening his control over the town and his machine couldn't keep up!

"Screw it," decided Drosselmeyer, in what was possibly the wisest career choice he had ever made. "Edel, we're leaving."

End.

* * *

I'm sorry guys I really am but I couldn't resist -

:::ducks the thrown tomatoes:::


End file.
